Rama II: The Sequel to Rendezvous with Rama

Rating:
Summary: Boring! Not like Arthur C. Clake at all.
Review: I can't give it less than a 7 eventhough I hated it. I have to admit that it is still a decent book. (I couldn't have written it). It seems that Clarke spends more time nowadays trying to paint a picture of the future that is perfectly politically correct and devoid of any particular prevalent religion. That is fine, but I think he spends too much time on that and not on telling a good story. He will write 50 great pages on Raman exploration and then 50 on a particular characters personal life, complete with memories of their childhood and their philosophy. I agree with another reviewer below that said that this book seems to have been written mostly be Lee. I have loved Clarke and read his books for years and this one spins off track. Don't read it page for page. Be ready to skip over 20% of it

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good actually
Review: The first book may be better, but that's up to you. I still recommend that you read the first book before reading this one. But if you already read that one, you should most certainly read this. It is a wonderful story

Rating:
Summary: Wasn't necessary
Review: Rendezvous with Rama was an original, thought provoking work. The sequel only seems to have been written to satisfy the demand for such, but does little else. Though the stories are quite similar, the adjustments made to the story offer little new. That's not to say it's bad. I just think Clarke and Lee could have gone from Rendezvous with Rama to Rama II with few changes

Rating:
Summary: I thought it was pretty good.
Review: It may not have been quite as "exciting" as Rendevous with Rama, it certainly was more detailed. There was much more character development, including the "biots." I will say that there was more background then may have been necessary. It made Rendevous with Rama seem like a prequel to Rama II. I liked Rendevous better, but all in all, Rama II was enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: A book that goes no where
Review: A plot line that wanders with no place to go. It seems the authors sat down at the word processor without an outline or any idea where or what their characters were going to do.. If your going to read it, check it out of the library

Rating:
Summary: EXELENT!
Review: I found this book was great, I read it during my holidays and I almost did not get some rest GREAT BOOK ! far better than the first in the trilogy, I'm looking forward to read "Garden of rama!

Rating:
Summary: Overlong and boring
Review: This book is nothing like Rendezvous with Rama; it isboring, overlong and does not read like an Arthur C Clarke novel.It appears Lee did most of the writing and unfortunately it shows. My recommendation: Skip it.

Rating:
Summary: This is a stupid book
Review: I seldom take the time to write a review of a book. Usually I take that time when the book is good. This time I am writing to warn readers that this is a stupid book.

I began reading Rama II after reading Rendezvous (sp?) with Rama, which wasn't too bad, but was rather thin material itself. But with Rama II Clarke and Lee have reached new heights of silliness. The book is slow, slow, slow to begin with as the authors, I assume, seek to make sure that they have adequately developed their characters.

Finally we get to the object of the whole excercise, the alien spaceship itself, where the crew displays the most unbelievable pettiness that one would never believe possible in a crew of selected, professional cosmonauts. The characters' psychological defects would never past the test of any realistic agency which sought to choose a dozen people for one of the most important missions ever.

Then when the commander of the mission is suddenly killed mysteriously during a botched operation, we are treated to a scene in which one of the chief defective characters is engaged in a Macbeth-like attempt to become the new commander.

At this point I threw the book down in disgust. I have better things to do with my time. Like read the sequel to Bright Messengers by the same co-author of Rama II, Gentry Lee. Here Lee is on better footing I am happy to say, perhaps because he does not have to contend with Clarke?

Rating:
Summary: like sands through the houglass, these are the dys abrd Rama
Review: ... I had to roll my eyes with the soap opera developements, and many pages were skimmed in reading the second installment.
Nicole and the future King of England? Puhleease! (Did they enlist the aid of a 6 y/o girl in writing this plotline?" It needs a pwinth, a pwitheth and ponies!") Shakespearean robots? I don't even remember when they entered Rama, it was so anticlimactic as they were more concerned with their melodramatic lives than with Rama.
I did like to some extent the inclusion of faith and prayer. Don't see that much in SF; no muslims aboard the Enterprise and all that, but the papal visit? A little much. Avians were interesting. Fellow explorers from ages ago that got trapped or chose to stay as Nicole, etc. did?
Overall, I wanted more Rama and Rama detail, alien landscapes, etc.But even these were ?? I am not sure how to put it?? dumbed down? Less 'alien' that in the first novel? At first I thought the Avians had backward teched the alien Raman infrastructure to suit themselves to some extent, but the White room disappointed me, as did the 'subway', but still way more interesting than the first 2/3 of the book.

I suppose getting humans aboard was necesary for the development of the next installment, but if you get the book- feel free to skim entire chapters. (And characters, namely Francesca, whose point of existence was...???)

Rating:
Summary: Ramans????
Review: I loved Rendezvous and I couldn't wait to read Rama II when I was done. I have just finished reading the book. Overall I liked the book, but there are still many parts that I am upset about. I agree with most of the other reviewers that the book focused way too much on the characters-and too little on Rama as a whole. Who cares about Nicole's porzo and her turning into a bird?--too unrelated too weird. Francesca and her interviews?? The ending was okay, and i am going to say what I thought about it next--so if you dont want to know the ending, don't read the next paragraph.

Anyway, I thought that ending left way too many unanswered questions that left the story incomplete. The main one I had was Why was Rama headed to Earth? Also what was the point of the birds? How could they just leave O'toole there? Wasn't Janos supposed to be supporting O'toole?? And the remaining question What are nicole, richard and otoole gonna do now that they are trapped on a ship that is supposed to continue to travel through space for another thousand or so years. I did like the biots-especially the human ones, and I liked that richard was accually able to communicate to the Ramans or something.

Despite the horrible reviews of the next Rama books, I need to read them anyway. Rama II failed to answer the question of who the Ramans are, and after starting the series, i need to find out.